We will find a great deal to surprise us, if we study the habits of the trees and plants about us. Some have very peculiar methods of growth; some go to sleep, and wake up at regular hours; some set little traps for catching insects; some often change the colors of their flowers; and many other curious ways they have.
But men, who travel in various countries, and study the vegetable growth of all climates, meet with very marvelous things indeed. Let us follow them about the world for awhile. But we will have to travel very swiftly, and to skip from one country to another, and back again, perhaps, with great haste.
We will first look at some trees that surprise us by their size.
On Mount Etna, in Sicily, there is a famous chestnut tree. It stands on one of the lower slopes of the mountain, so that it is often visited. There are quite a number of huge chestnut trees in that neighborhood, each of which has a distinctive name. But the “Chestnut of a Hundred Horses” is much larger than any of the others. It is a very, very old tree, and the people who now live near it, are not sure how it first got its name. Some say it was named many years ago by a Spanish queen because its thick wide branches once sheltered her and her party of a hundred horsemen, from the rain. Others say it is so called because a hundred horses can be sheltered within, and around it. It is now the home of a shepherd, who has built a hut for himself, and a fold for his sheep, within the hollow of the tree.
The trunk measures 190 feet around. It looks as if there were several trees growing together, but it is known to be all one tree.
THE GREAT CHESTNUT TREE OF MOUNT ETNA.
In the centre of a graveyard, in the village of Allouville, in Normandy, there stands an oak that is over nine-hundred years old. Near the ground its trunk measures thirty feet in circumference. Two hundred years ago it was fitted up as a little chapel, and is used for that purpose to this day.
The tree is hollow, as are all these very old trees. The lower part of this hollow is lined with wood, carefully plastered and wainscoted. This is the chapel. Above it, is a second story, and in this room lives a solitary man—a hermit. Above, in the branches, is a belfry, ornamented with a cross.
In another part of France, there is an oak that is known to be fifteen hundred years old. It also is hollow, but every year, like the Hundred Horse Chestnut, and the Allouville Oak, it covers itself with thick and luxuriant foliage. The circumference of this oak is over 80 feet, and its branches spread over a circumference of 380 feet.